For nokre veker sidan oppsummerte eg doktorgradsprosjektet mitt på 6 minutt og 40 sekund. Her ser du resultatet:

Denne presentasjonen vart laga for Pecha Kucha Night Oslo, som arrangerast med jamne mellomrom på DogA. Pecha Kucha skal vere ein inspirasjonskveld med lynforedrag om arkitektur, design og kunst. Kvar talar får ta med 20 bilete som kvart blir vist i 20 sekund, til saman 6 minutt og 40 sekund. Heldigvis fekk eg lov å bytte ut nokre av bileta med video – noko som var essensielt for å formidle arbeidet mitt.

The thesis consists of a metareflection (kappe) and three publications. All publications have gone through peer-review and have been published before. The metareflection situates and extends these publications by providing more theoretical background and introducing new concepts and models.

Download the documents below:

Metareflection

Eikenes, J.O.(2010). Navimation: a sociocultural exploration of kinetic interface design. Doctoral thesis, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Institute of Design, Oslo.  Download the metareflection (4,69 MB)

Publication 1

Eikenes, J.O. and A. Morrison (2010). Navimation: Exploring time, space & motion in the design of screen-based interfaces. International Journal of Design, 4(1), 1-16.  Download Publication 1 (1 MB) Also available from The International Journal of Design..

Publication 2

Eikenes, J. O. (2009). Social navimation: Engaging interfaces in social media. Paper presented at Engaging Artifacts. The 3rd Nordic design research conference (NORDES). 31 August-1 September.  Download Publication 2 (0,6 MB) Also available from NORDES.

Publication 3

Eikenes, J.O.(2010). Connecting motional form to interface actions in web browsing: Investigating through motion sketching. FORMakademisk, 3(1), 80-100.  Download Publication 3 (1,4 MB) Also available from FORMakademisk. I have also created an online version with embedded videos.

Kinetic Interface Design from JonO on Vimeo.

In addition to the interface examples, a number of descriptive and analytical terms are presented. These terms have been developed through analysis of kinetic interfaces in academic publications. The kinetic interfaces presented in the video are:

The Apple OSX login box

NAVIMATION
The Iconist #1 (iPad)
www.leoburnett.ca
Disney Movies (iPad)

SOCIAL NAVIMATION
www.taggraph.com
Flipboard (iPad)

MOTIONAL TRANSFORMATION
www.jonathanyuen.com
www.well-formed-data.net/experiments/elastic_lists

SPATIAL MANIPULATION
For All Seasons (iPhone)
www.tryggtrafikk.no/Sykkelhjelm2010
www.ecodazoo.com

TEMPORAL NAVIGATION
Cooliris (iPhone)
www.wrangler-europe.com/bluebell/ss10/#/collection
www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/3dwall

INDEXICAL COMPOSITING
www.sectionseven.com/index2.html
www.homeinvest.no

VIRTUAL KINETICS
www.thewhalehunt.org
www.thibaud.be

Music: ‘Rieth’ from Gesamtlaufzeit by Marko Fürstenberg. (Used with permission.)

Her er presentasjonen min frå RECORD-seminaret på AHO 10. september 2010. Her argumenterer eg mellom anna for at utforming av grensesnittet er svært viktig i sosiale medier, noko som sjeldan vert snakka høgt om. Vidare snakkar eg om fire ulike måtar å skisse bevegelse på: 1) ved å bruke video + papirprototyping, 2) stop motion, 3) digital animasjon og 4) kode. For meir informasjon, sjå artikkelen Connecting motional form to interface actions in web browsing.

Skisser utanfor boksen

Sidan det ikkje er video i presentasjonen ovanfor, legg eg ved alle videoskissene mine her. Dei er sorterte etter handling, og viser dermed ulike måtar å 1) lagre medieelement (bilete) til ei samling, 2) navigere mellom ulike medieelement, og 3) opne ei samling av medieelement. Skissene er laga ved bruk av video, stop motion og animasjon i After Effects.

1. Ulike måtar å lagre medieelement til ei samling:

2. Ulike måtar å navigere mellom medieelement:

3. Ulike måtar å opne ei samling av medieelement:

It is now possible to include complex visual movement in screen interfaces, including those that enable web browsing on different media devices. This article investigates the potential for employing movement in web browsing – or more specifically, how motional form may be connected to interface actions. The investigation is carried out through design experimentation. Techniques of ‘motion sketching’ have been developed and utilized in a practice-based research project. The resulting motion sketches are analysed as realizations of complex mediation – by drawing on social semiotics and the concept of action from Leont’ev. The article argues that motional form is made meaningful through connotations and experiential metaphors, and suggests ten provisional principles for how motional form may be used in web browsing. This challenges notions of form and function in current interface design and how social semiotic theory may be produced.

Screen-based user interfaces now include dynamic and moving elements that transform the screen space and relations of mediated content. These changes place new demands on design as well as on our reading and use of such multimodal texts. Assuming a socio-cultural perspective on design, we discuss in this article the use of animation and visual motion in interface navigation as navimation. After presenting our Communication Design framework, we refer to relevant literature on navigation and motion. Three core concepts are introduced for the purpose of analysing selected interface examples using multimodal textual analysis informed by social semiotics. The analysis draws on concepts from multiple fields, including animation studies, ‘new’ media, interaction design, and human-computer interaction. Relations between time, space and motion are discussed and linked to wider debates concerning interface design.

Let’s look at some of the videos.

Synne Frydenberg

This idea shows quite directly how the properties of paper can be used in motion sketching, in this case by folding the paper.

Natasha Ruivo:

Natasha makes use of what I call virtual kinetics, by giving the sensation of gravity and mass as the images fall down.

(UPDATE: this video stopped working, and has therefore been removed)

This video shows nicely how stop motion can be used to show how a specific task or action in the interface can be accomplished. This would be much harder to sketch and present without such a video.

Fanny Monier

Fanny shows how stop motion can be used to create a sensation of transformation and three-dimensional space by simply substituting one drawing with another. This technique seems highly effective.

Another way to create the sensation of a three-dimensional space is of course to physically set it up in three dimensions. This efficiently takes us away from the page metaphor and allow us to rather conceptualise the interface as a stage or a theatre.

Svein Inge Bjørkhaug

(UPDATE: this video stopped working, and has therefore been removed)

The idea behind this video is to make a way of sorting images as they are imported from a digital camera to a computer. I think the motion sketch communicates quite well how this idea could be realised, by showing how the user actions are linked to what happens on the screen.

Ivan Milanovic

Ivan was the only student working with a real device, the iPhone. It must have been quite hard to work with such small elements and the small screen space. The first part of the video is a bit too rough, but the last part of the video shows nicely how a tilting gesture can be used to move between images.

Theo Tveterås

A simple but nice idea: touch the surface, and images appear underneath each finger.

As Theo argued, the principle that is sketched out here could be used in a screen interface by using other ways of controlling the navigation. I also think it could be a fun way of navigating a device with screens on both sides!

A playful way of engaging with photos: a memory game!

What did we learn?

Stop motion prototyping obviously has its advantages and disadvantages. These are the main advantages:

• quite easy and quick to prototype visual elements that move, especially in three dimensions.
• easy to show how user action and screen presentation may be related over time
• the rough style of stop motion is suited for rough sketching
• physical space and physical elements (such as paper) may inspire and induce new ideas. Great potential for experimentation.
• effective for communicating and presenting ideas

The challenges:

• requires some equipment and software tools (camera, tripod, light, PC, software)
• it may take some time to prepare the visual elements (i.g. paper pieces)
• there are limits for what you can easily do in front of a camera. Some things are more easy to do on a computer
• it is hard and time consuming to produce subtle and sophisticated movement by using stop motion

Social Navimation is the phenomenon of engaging with social media through a navimational interface, or more specifically, to intertwine navigation with motion in
social media applications. In this paper I analyse a set of design examples of how social navimation can be realised.

I got a lot of positive comments after the presentation, especially on the visual presentation. Overall I am happy with the Prezi tool, even if I have discovered some bugs. It took me quite some time to make the presentation, but now I know the tool and will definitely use it for future presentations.

“Since they need to be able to capture the essence of design concepts around transitions, dynamics, fell, phrasing, and all the other unique attributes of interactive systems, sketches of interaction must necessarily be distinct from (traditional) types of sketches…” Bill Buxton: Sketching User Experiences

This week I have been involved in teaching a group of interaction design students at the Design for interactive and social media course at AHO. The topic has been ‘Sketching with time’, and has focused on using stop motion combined with paper prototyping to sketch interface ideas. The week’s assignment was to make a photo album interface and experiment with navimation.

Before introducing the students to the technique I had to try it out myself. I found the Mac application FrameByFrame which has been brilliant for this purpose. The functionality of the software is limited, but it is free, extremely simple to use, and serves the purpose for quick motion sketching.

Here are two of the quick stop motion sketches I made:

I also tried using video, recording my actions in real time:

The video quality is quite rough (partly because I am using a really old DV camera), but I don’t see this as a big problem. The technique is primarily to be used for quick sketches early in the design process.

The students got three days to make their video sketches. During these days many of the students managed to do a lot of experimentation and test out different ideas. The task was in many ways an experiment from our side, so I was positively surprised by the diversity and quality of their work. I also got the impression that they had learned a lot about timing, response and communication in the interface.

The technique has clearly some disadvantages – it is for example hard to make subtle movements and deal with details and many elements at the same time. However, it seems especially suited for 3D motion sketching, since this often requires a lot of time and skills to do on a computer.

UPDATE: see some of the videos the students made.